A blog to talk about my major obsessions – the craft of writing, going to book clubs, and reading. Always reading.

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Lewis Carroll

I’ve recently returned from a trip to the UK for Christmas and one of the highlights of my trip was spending a weekend visitng my sister in the German city of Cologne. Best of all was recieving an invitation to participate in her January book club, which I accepted without hesitation.

I was interested in attending for a number of reasons. Most of all was my curiosity about how this book club would differ in dynamic from my own, particularly as about half the group are native German speakers reading a book in their second language, which poses extra difficulties that we do not have to deal with. Because of this, the book club has a rule that every choice has to be written by a native English speaker, which rules out a vast swathe of European and African authors. This is a shame, but the reasoning behind it is to keep anything which may be too challenging from being chosen. I can understand this, but it still seems a shame.

The other main difference is that my sister’s group are much more organised than our ramshackle group. They already have the dates and choices made for the whole of 2016, which is a far cry from us, who generally only work a month or two in advance. My sister put this down to the usual German efficiency, which raised a smile. I guess it is good to know choices ahead of schedule for planning purposes, but I’d be surprised if this level of organisation ever becomes a trait of my book club!

The friendship of the German group is something that I envied as the evening wore on. The group was started about three years ago when the organiser put an ad in his local paper, and after early teething problems they have had the same core of regulars for a long period. This is something that we have struggled to overcome – this is partly because our club was set up on the Meetup platform, which allows anyone to join and attend meetings. We have a large number of people who turn up for one meeting and then never attend again, or come once a year. This is perfectly fine, and allows for fresh perspectives every month which keeps us on our toes. We do have a group of four or five regulars who turn up every month and are active socially outside of the meetings as well, and that’s great. Familar faces allow a club to have a stable nucleus and make meetings more comfortable, and I wish we had more of them. The German book club is currently closed for new members and so they have the same people every month, and they have a really nice rapport with each other. And this familiarity hasn’t lessened the strength of debate, judging by my visit.

This comforting feel is exacerbated because the group meets in a member’s flat, rather than the pub. And everyone brings a bottle of something or some food (exceptional food going on what I ate that night!) which is rather lovely.

The book that was chosen for this month, my sister’s choice in fact, was the famous children’s classic Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I was sure that I had read this novel as a child, but after completing it this time I’m not so sure. The book has become a large part of the public’s consciousness, with numerous adaptations, films, plays, and of course the famous illustrations that accompany the prose and have been drawn by some of the great illustrators of the age. My memories of it are more likely drawn from some of these sources rather than the original text.

What to say about it? Well the novel is a blend of literary nonsense containing puzzles, wordplay, riddles, parody, logic problems, you name it. Most of these puzzles seem to have no clear solutions as Alice negotiates Wonderland, most famously the Mad Hatter’s riddle and the Queen’s croquet game. Logic, or the lack of it, is the theme. Anything is possible, and Carroll plays with language to express this point. Many words have multiple meanings and interpretations, and nothing is ever what it seems. Alice uses the word ‘curious’ throughout to describe her experiences.

Of course, at the novel’s conclusion we find out that Alice was having a dream the whole time, so the characters of the world of Wonderland are mixed in with aspects of Alice’s subconscious. This adds to the slightly hallucinatory feel of the novel, as does the Caterpillar’s mushroom, which Alice nibbles on to control her fluctuations in size. These changes in size and her confusion with them may have been used by Carroll as a metaphor for puberty and the fears of growing into adulthood.

These word games and riddles caused frustration in some of the group. I think this novel must have been very difficult to translate and as such some of the puzzles either lost their meaning or, because they are steeped in 19th century Victorian culture, made little sense. I found some of the wordplay a little hard to grasp, so someone reading this book in their second language must have found it very tough.

This is not to say that the English speaking of the group was basic. I was staggered by the quaity of the English of all the group, which was probably better than my own. I have enormous respect for anyone who can speak another language and am in awe of it to be honest. My sister speaks two languages fluently and it still amazes me when she conducts a conversation in German. I frankly feel inadequate and a little rude not being able to have the ability to speak to a German in their own language, particularly when they were such welcoming hosts. It is something I would like to address.

So it was a novel that I enjoyed, a playful, somewhat anarchic read. And the warmth shown to me by my German friends will linger long in the memory. Wunderbar!